Sheffield Park: Summer Rain

I've been volunteering for a few weeks now with the 'Outdoor Team', carrying out a variety of 'hands on' gardening and conservation tasks at the National Trust's Sheffield Park and Garden close to where we now live.

Today, however, a call went out for Volunteers to cover a range of other tasks to cope with an anticipated 'rush' of visitors that never quite occurred. I nonetheless spent a useful and enjoyable day outdoors in the sunshine, helping to direct traffic to and within the car park next to the garden - until a band of continual heavy rain swept in at around 2pm!

After carrying out a few other tasks, I ended up just taking a walk in the garden to capture the colours brought out by the rain.

The 'Extras' I've added here are a pair of photographs of a Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea) near to the 'second' lake, which lost a branch overnight a few weeks ago: one image with the point of focus on the fallen limb, the other focussed on the glistening leaves on the main (and still standing) stem of the tree. And yes, the colour of the heartwood of the fallen limb is pretty much what you see here...